The concepts for this exercise are summarized below.
For a complete discussion,
read the text.

One definition of the English verb to distribute is to spread out.
The distributive law is one of the most frequently used tools in algebra,
and tells how multiplication gets ‘spread out’ when it interacts
with additionit gives a different order of operations that can be used.

The basic statement of the distributive law is deceptively simple.
Many important tools, however, are consequences of this law.
One of the most famous is ‘FOIL’, which we'll see in the next section
is a memory device for correctly multiplying expressions of the form
[beautiful math coming... please be patient]
$\,(a + b)(c + d)\,$.

One effective visual way to understand the statement of the distributive law is to use areas (see below).

Form a rectangle with height
[beautiful math coming... please be patient]
$\,a\,$ and width $\,b + c\,$.
The area of this rectangle is height times width:
[beautiful math coming... please be patient]
$a(b + c)\,$.
However, the area can also be found by summing the areas of the two smaller rectangles:
[beautiful math coming... please be patient]
$\,ab + ac\,$.
Thus,
[beautiful math coming... please be patient]
$\,a(b + c) = ab + ac\,$.

It helps some students first learning to use the distributive law to draw
the following arrows:

EXAMPLES:

Simplify:
$\,a(b - c)$

Answer:
$ab - ac$
Do not change the order of the letters:
write ‘$\,ab - ac\,$’, not (say)
‘$\,ba - ac\,$’.

Simplify:
$(-a + b)(-c)$

Answer:
$ac - bc$
You must write your answers in the simplest possible way
to be recognized as correct in the exercise below.

Simplify:
$-(-a + c)$

Answer:
$a - c$

Simplify:
$2a(4b - 3c)$

Answer:
$8ab - 6ac$

Master the ideas from this section
by practicing the exercise at the bottom of this page.

For your answers to be recognized as correct,
you must not change the order of the letters.
For example, the answer to
‘$\,a(b - c)\,$’ must be input as
‘$\,ab - ac\,$’ .
Although (for example) ‘$\,ba - ca\,$’ is a correct answer, it is not recognized as correct.
Keep the left-to-right order of the variables!